Chapter 1 – Lost
7:30pm, Wednesday, June 6th, 2007.
Mission complete, Lord Danzo.
He was so numb he couldn't even feel his injuries anymore. He could hear ANBU in the distance, coming closer by the second. His clothes were covered in blood and he was surrounded by an entire district full of the bodies of his clansmen, with the body of his cousin and best friend Itachi at his feet still bleeding out.
It's finished. Everything's all over. Just one thing left to do.
At fifteen years old, Shisui couldn't do fuinjutsu and nor could he read in kanji above Sasuke's grade level. All he'd really done was try to copy a fuinjutsu from a scroll in the Uchiha clan library's restricted section just in case. After ten days of barely sleeping or eating he also wasn't thinking straight, or he would have just offed himself and been done with it all. That had been the orders.
I can't let them capture me. They can't find out about the extent of Lord Danzo's original plan. If they find out the village is done for. If they find out, then everyone just died for nothing.
But instead, his mind went straight to Plan B for whenever he was in a bind and about to be caught: seal his body away so no one can study his clan's kekkei genkai.
Forbidden Sealing Art: Secret Coffin Jutsu!
Somewhere deep in the forest of the island of Lian Yu, a badly wounded Japanese teenager appeared on the ground out of nowhere. Animals scattered and birds took to the air, startled.
Minutes inched by before Shisui finally started to wake up.
Huh? I'm alive? How am I alive?
He woke up exactly the way he'd been trained to. Eyes closed, heartrate and breathing unchanged, feeling, smelling, listening. Anyone around would think that he was still unconscious.
Rain. I'm being rained on. I'm out in the open, on muddy ground littered with rocks and grass.
Breathing hurt. He felt a stabbing pain in his side and he had the distinct sensation that he wasn't getting enough air when he did breathe. He could scarcely draw a breath in. He laid there, trying to breathe and stay conscious. Trying to gather as much information as he could about his current predicament before he opened his eyes and officially woke up for any onlookers.
Fuck.
He was in so much pain.
It smells salty. Like the ocean. Am I near the ocean? How the hell…?
The Leaf Village was nowhere near the ocean.
Did I mess up the fuinjutsu? Where did it send me? Am I in enemy territory right now?
I don't hear anyone nearby. I have to get up and out of the rain.
His whole body was sore and all the cuts, stab wounds, and lacerations burned from being exposed to the rain and the muddy ground.
Gotta clean them or they'll get infected. If they aren't already.
Groaning and wincing in pain, he forced himself to sit up. His vision swam as he felt a rush of lightheadedness. He had to take a moment to collect himself, breathing laboriously as he shivered from the cold rain. When he felt up to it, he stood and looked around. The forest stretched in all directions, seemingly endless. The rain had washed away any signs of human presence in the area, so he couldn't be sure if this was an inhabited area or not.
I'll have to assume it is and avoid detection. Lord Danzo will have me declared a missing-nin by now.
He reached back into one of his hip pouches and withdrew a small pill bottle half-full of food pills. Leaning over it so the rain wouldn't get in it, he took out one and ate it. First and foremost, he needed to make it through the rain storm. Killing everyone in the Uchiha clan with Itachi had used up almost all of his chakra. Every step he took, every stabbing breath he drew in, he had to fight to stay conscious.
I wish I left my survival gear scroll in my vest.
He had taken it out of his vest pockets and replaced it with a scroll full of extra weapons last night in preparation for the massacre.
Eventually, he found a cave and set up some sapling traps to wake him up if anyone approached outside. He half sat, half collapsed to the floor of the cave, completely exhausted, gasping for air with the exertion and the stabbing pain in his side. He had barely any chakra left. He did his best to treat all the injuries he could reach with the first aid kit he had in his hip pouch. Then he pulled out one of the scrolls from his jonin vest, unsealed his bamboo water canteen and took a long drink from it before setting it down and letting himself slip into unconsciousness.
Sunday, June 27th, 2007, 11:00pm.
"Hi mom, dad. Hi grandfather Kagami, great grandpa." He said softly as he put some fresh flowers in the vases from the Yamanaka flower shop. He sat down in front of his family's grave stone, silently tracing each of their engraved names with a finger. His name would be added here in just ten days' time.
He'd been wandering aimlessly around the Uchiha district after the clan meeting ended and he'd had his subsequent meetings with Lord Third and the elders and the private meeting with Danzo afterwards. He had too much on his mind, on his shoulders, on his heart, and no one to talk to, so he'd ended up here. He needed to visit them a final time anyways, as selfish as his reasons were. He put down some simple privacy seals and began talking.
"The meeting was tonight. The date's been set. It's in ten days and I don't know what to do." His voice broke. He felt sick to his stomach remembering the righteous anger of his clansmen, Lord Third's fruitless request for more time, and Danzo's ultimatum in private afterwards.
"We've been working to try to fix things for a whole year now. A year and a few months. It all started after Itachi made ANBU right before Sasuke started Academy last year. All that time, all that work, and it's all been for nothing. What did I do wrong, mom?" he asked desperately, tears flowing freely now.
"Lord Danzo's gonna kill them all if we don't and it'll be a civil war. Other clans will get scared when they realize the Leaf has no qualms about silencing rebellion with genocide. They might even leave or rebel themselves and honestly I can't blame them. It goes against all the values that this village was founded on." He said, sniffling.
He understood and empathized with both sides. Having lost his mom and great grandpa in the Nine Tails attack, he was intimately familiar with the experiences of his fellow clansmen in the aftermath. All the grief from losing friends, teammates, and loved ones and having fellow villagers tell you that not only did your clan lose absolutely no one, but then blame your clan for the attack. He knew how they all felt, and that's why they had never suspected him as being a double agent. He even understood their frustration with Lord Third now that he was watching an entire year's worth of work with him go right down the drain.
"Everything's a mess but it's gonna be so much worse if I let the coup d'état happen. We're already at war with Mist. Kaito died on that mission because Cloud escalated knowing full well that the Leaf didn't have the military strength. Knowing that they would have to send underqualified genin and chunin on B rank missions. Who's to say Cloud won't take advantage like they did after the Nine Tails attack and try to take our border patrol towers again? Or that Stone won't see the opportunity for revenge after Lord Fourth killed all those ninja in the Third Great War?" He wiped his tears away furiously.
"I told Itachi I would never, ever betray him and I don't intend to break that promise. Cause of the coup d'état, I have to kill them. Everyone! Dads, moms, aunts, uncles, grandparents, kids, babies. Fucking babies. I don't want any of that. I don't want any of this. Please, if you're listening, just tell me what to do. I've tried everything I can think of."
He cried himself to sleep in front of their graves that night.
He didn't know how much time had passed when he woke up again, startled awake by the sound of one of his sapling traps breaking. Kunai in hand, ignoring the pain, he got up and moved closer to the mouth of the cave so he could watch the people outside from a safe vantage point. There were two men walking around dressed in some sort of military uniform, wearing black cloth masks that covered their faces, and carrying weapons he was unfamiliar with.
Local soldiers, I guess. Where did the jutsu take me? What sort of weapon is that? Do they know I'm wanted by Konoha, if I've never even seen their equipment before?
He couldn't even gather information by listening to their conversation because even what snippets he could catch at that distance were all gibberish to him. They spoke another language.
Unknown language, unfamiliar weapons…am I even in my own world anymore? Surely Konoha being one of the Great Five, we would have acquired intel on these guys.
They. They would have.
His traps didn't go unnoticed by the soldiers. They knelt down to look at his broken sapling trap, talking amongst themselves and looking around carefully, trying to find out where he was. He ducked back into the cave and reached back into his hip pouch for the food pills again and popped another just in case.
I haven't eaten or drank enough to recover the charka needed to heal let alone fight these guys. If they report back to their superiors that I'm here, I'm sure as dead.
He couldn't set a trap with explosive tags and wire at the mouth of the cave, as effective as that would be, because doing so would risk a cave in that would kill him, too. He refused to cause Konoha any grief by dying in unknown enemy territory on the chance that it would get back to them. Not when he'd just sacrificed everything to prevent the political upheaval and civil war that the coup d'état and Danzo's thinly veiled threat to use the Foundation to slaughter the Uchiha would have brought upon the village. The village had only just recovered from its war with the Hidden Cloud and was still at war with the Hidden Mist.
The two soldiers approached the cave, readying their weapons for confrontation, and so he made his decision. He pulled a half-ram sign with one hand and body flickered behind them, drawing his kunai across the throat of the left one and killing him instantly in a spray of blood. He knocked the one on the right out with a swift blow to the back of his head and tied him up before taking care of the left one's body.
He took out his one empty scroll from his jonin vest and sealed up the dead guy's weapon, uniform, and everything of value before using a katon jutsu to burn the body. He could have sealed the body up, too, but he didn't want to waste valuable scroll space. He took the hostage to his cave and deposited him against the wall in the back, his feet and hands both tied, and all weapons, useful valuables, rations, and body armor removed from his person, leaving him clad in just his pants and shirt. He sipped on the dead soldier's water canteen and ate two dry biscuits he'd had on him while he waited for his hostage to wake up.
I hope he speaks Japanese. If he doesn't, there was no point to this and I'll have to kill him anyways.
He was just taking his last few bites when the soldier woke up. He must not be very high ranking, or very well trained, despite his appearing to be in early to mid-twenties. He didn't even get his bearings first he just woke up like a novice genin would have, startling, gasping, and looking around all panicked.
"Good, you're awake. Do you understand what I'm saying?" he asked, straightening up and trying to both sound and look like he felt stronger than he really did.
The man looked at him with an expression of confusion on his face.
I guess not.
"Where are we? Who do you work for?"
Still nothing but a look of complete confusion. Then, the man started talking to him, scared and desperate, but he didn't understand a word in either of the two distinct languages the man tried.
He ran a hand through his curly black hair in frustration. "This was a waste of time, then. I should have killed you to begin with."
He withdrew a kunai from his hostler and the man panicked, shouting and begging. He didn't need to speak the language to know he was begging for his life. He killed the man quickly to silence his pleading and hoped to all the gods that would listen that no one else heard him.
I can't stay here. I'll have to move on and find or make some shelter the storm comes in.
The two soldiers had probably been out on patrol so someone would be around soon to check when they weren't back on time for shift change or report or whatever. He took the man's clothes off and changed into them before sealing his own soaking wet, bloodstained clothes away.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to dry them before it rains.
His hands sped through the signs for the fireball jutsu and he breathed in deeply, his lungs screaming at him in pain and his heart skipping a beat with the chakra strain as he breathed out and sent a small fireball at the soldier's body. He sat down to rest for a moment outside the cave as the body was gradually consumed by flames, filling the area with the nauseating, unforgettable odor of burning human flesh. When he finally felt like he could stand up without falling over, he got up and left the cave and the burning dead soldier behind.
I wish I could summon the crows. They could help me find water and bring food. But it'll take way too much chakra to summon them all the way here. Wherever here is.
When he was a safe distance away from the cave and the two bodies, he ducked and hid under cover so he could stop and clean his wounds and change the bandages as needed before moving on again. He would do his best, but being exposed to the elements in unknown enemy territory like this his chances of avoiding an infection weren't good.
Then again, I guess everywhere is enemy territory now. Including the Land of Fire. They're gonna call me Shisui the Clan Killer now not just Shisui of the Body Flicker.
He walked for about an hour or so and avoided two traps before he had to hide in the trees to avoid another pair of soldiers patrolling. He hid in the cover of the trees, knowing full well most non-shinobi didn't bother to look up. Only Leaf-nin and those who fought them would think to look high up in the trees. He waited until they passed before he hopped down again to continue his trek through the woods.
I wonder if there's a village or a main road nearby. They have to be getting supplies from somewhere. Their camp probably has plenty but I'm not fit to raid an enemy base right now. Wherever here is and whoever they are, they're well financed and don't tolerate guests.
He ate his dead hostage's dry biscuits and drank some water as he walked, trying to hunt and track down a source of water. The biscuits tasted like eating sand, but it was sustenance. He needed to stay hydrated too, which is why he was wandering around looking for water instead of making a shelter. He couldn't risk building a temporary shelter anyways with all the soldiers around. He had a bottle of purifying tablets in his hip pouch, it was standard mission gear. He would worry when he ran out, if he lived that long.
It took longer than it should have, walking on foot at a slow pace, his breathing labored and painful, but eventually he was able to track some of local wildlife to a small river where he was able to kill a rabbit as well as fill up his three canteens and put a purifying tablet in each of them. He moved away from the river and got a campfire going while it was still daylight so he could dry his clothes out as well as gut, clean, and cook the rabbit. His heart skipped a few beats and his entire body seized up momentarily as he withdrew the clothes, causing him to double over in pain and fear for a minute before it passed.
Even the miniscule amount of chakra it takes to seal and unseal stuff is starting to be too much.
That rabbit couldn't cook quickly enough. He forced himself to get up and go catch some fish to cook as well while he waited. He had to make the most of this opportunity to make camp while no one was around. He caught a few small fish, opened them up, and stuck them on sticks by the fire to cook.
He ate and he felt a lot better with a good meal in him. He sealed up the leftovers and the fish and some hot stones from the campfire. Afterwards, he carefully erased the traces of his campsite before doing what he'd been wanting to do from the start – summon his crows.
He bit his thumb and slammed the hand to the ground. "Summoning jutsu!"
In a puff of smoke, two of his crows appeared on the ground. They were calm at first, analyzing the situation, but when they realized there was no battle or mission to help out in they relaxed. Piiko flapped his wings and hopped up onto his shoulder to nuzzle his face and nip his earlobe affectionately while Momo flapped his wings and cawed at him in frustration about something.
He smiled and gently stroked Piiko's feathers. "It's good to see you, too. What, Momo? Did I tear you away from hunting or something?"
Momo's instant silence was answer enough. "Okay, I'm sorry. You can grab something to eat here in the forest. I'm stranded so I need you two to help me out for a while. Fetch food and patrol, alright?"
His crows nodded and Piiko nipped his finger affectionately before they both took off into the sky. He could trust them to keep an eye out for the soldiers and warn him as well as bring back edible bugs and nuts. He could cook them on a hot stone.
He sat down to rest and conserve his energy while the crows hunted. Ten minutes, a half hour, an hour, he wasn't sure how long it was before he set out walking again. The trees were quicker and safer, but he needed to conserve chakra and find shelter before it rained now that his immediate need for food and water were temporarily satiated. If he got lucky he might find another cave, but worst case scenario he could survive the upcoming rainstorm high up in a sturdy tree with the two ponchos he'd taken from the soldiers. The rain hitting the poncho could make noise, though.
Hours became days. At least a week, now. He travelled, hunted game and fish, and roasted bugs and nuts that Piiko and Momo brought back. He cleaned the wounds he could reach as best as he could. He avoided the patrolling soldiers and could barely sleep from the nightmares. Slowly but surely, he went through all of his water purifying tablets. Worse yet, he could tell another person was living in the area he'd found himself in. He'd even found one of the animal traps he'd left out. Someone who wasn't a soldier but couldn't be a guaranteed ally, either. But the person seemed content to just coexist with him from a distance, so he hadn't paid him any mind. He couldn't afford to waste chakra on him, not with infection quickly setting in.
A few more days passed before he found himself laid up against a tree, running a high fever, breathing rapidly trying in vain to get enough air.
What am I gonna do? Burn myself alive? I can't use that jutsu it's defective. Maybe I messed it up.
He'd seen and heard stories of what enemies could do with just someone's body. Sand-nin could turn them into temporary human puppets. He'd seen that first-hand doing body retrieval on an old battlefield during the last few weeks of the Third War as a newly graduated genin. He'd seen fellow genin get blown up by booby-trapped bodies of their comrades doing body retrieval, too.
He tensed when he heard someone approaching. A middle-aged man, judging from his footsteps. Some military training, because he tried to hide the sound of his footsteps until he saw him and started to walk over at a much more obvious, quicker pace. He didn't hear him readying the weapon the patrolling soldiers had, and his shoes sounded different, so he clearly wasn't with the soldiers.
It took much more energy than it should have to move his hand to his hostler and pull out a kunai. The man had a quiver full of arrows and a bow in his hand, even if it was lowered right now.
He licked his lips and tried to talk. "W-Who…?"
He could scarcely make out the confused look on the man's face, and he certainly couldn't understand his reply. The man appeared to see this, because he held out a hand and gestured at him, repeating one of the words he had said.
"Shengcún." He said.
"Wh-what…?" he tried to ask.
If he could make out the man's expression and just think clearly, maybe he could have pieced together that the man was trying to help him. Instead he just put most of his remaining chakra into his feet and lunged at him, kunai poised to strike, only to faint and lose consciousness halfway there.
He woke up slowly, just as he'd been taught. The first thing he felt was the fur blanket draped over him made out of game fur stitched together and the thinner fur blanket under him to keep out the cold of the stone floor.
A cave? I'm not even tied up.
Then he felt the warmth against his skin of a burning campfire behind him. He had a wet cloth on his forehead, presumably for the fever. His wounds were painful, but not as bad as before.
How much time has passed? Did he help me?
He even had his weapons on him, still. His vest, hip pouches, and tanto had been removed but his kunai and shuriken hostlers were still there on his person. He could feel his vest folded up into a makeshift pillow under his head and his hip pouches lying beside him against his side.
He didn't even take my weapons away. This archer guy really is an ally.
He let himself wake up and open his eyes to look around. Sure enough, he was in a cave. He could barely focus enough to see the archer sitting by the fire. When he noticed he was awake, he hurried over and offered him his canteen and a handful of herbs.
"Shengcún." The archer said.
Huh? What's he want?
The man gestured at him with the herbs several times before his brain managed to catch up and he realized he wanted him to eat them. So he did. He nearly gagged at the awful taste and texture and had to down most of the water to get it down. The archer offered him some roasted game and he was famished but he could barely finish the piece he'd handed him before he was too weak and sleepy to eat anymore. His fever and lethargy dragged him back down to sleep.
He drifted in and out of consciousness for a while after that. Each time he woke up safe in the cave by the fire. The archer wasn't always there by the fire offering food, water, and herbs but he usually left out water, herbs, and smoked jerky for him to eat. It wasn't enough for the long stretches of time he was gone, but it helped.
Waking up was painful and disorienting, but sleeping was torturous and traumatizing. Shisui's sleep was anything but restful. His clansmen haunted him every time he closed his eyes.
"Mommy, help!"
"Stop, you're one of us, why are you doing this?!"
"No, not my daughter! Please, spare my daughter!"
"Why are you doing this, Shisui?!"
"Don't kill my son he's only three! He's innocent he's just a three-year-old little boy please-!"
"No, I don't wanna die!"
"What's happening?! Ack-!"
"Big brother! Shisui! What's happening? Where's mom and dad? Who could do this-"
Eventually, after what seemed like ages, he woke up strong enough to actually think clearly and get his bearings. His fever must've broken.
The fire was going. The mouth was left cracked open to ventilate the smoke from the nearby campfire, and the darkness of the sliver of outside he could see told him it was nighttime. The archer was asleep beside him in a cocoon of stitched together animal furs much like he was. His water canteen was left out for him within arms' reach. He slowly, gingerly sat up, wincing at the pain in his ribs. He uncorked the canteen and drank greedily, feeling quite dehydrated, and forced himself to gag down some of the herbs.
If he wanted to kill me or turn me in to those soldiers, he's had lots of chances. Judging by how they had stepped up patrol, they found those bodies.
He took quick stock of his body. The dressings and bandages had all been changed and the injuries themselves kept clean. Some of the ones he hadn't been able to reach were treated and one of them was stitched. He couldn't help give a small smile at the sight of it all.
He looked around the cave and took in his new surroundings. It looked like the archer had been living here for quite some time. The two traps in the corner showed signs of wear and tear and repair over an extended period of time. He had a collection of found or stolen plastic jugs for water within arm's reach, most of which were empty or low. A flat, modest size stone was being used as a tray for his canteen and a small wooden cup full of some kind of herb. It was a small cave, barely big enough for a middle-aged man, a teenage boy, and a campfire.
The man himself had long, unkempt black hair and was dressed in worn green clothing and a distinctive green hood. His bow and quiver of arrows were sat against the wall of the cave within reach if need be. He had scars here and there from a life of fighting just like most seasoned shinobi did. He looked around, memorizing his new surroundings, and eventually moved his vest back behind his head so he could lay down to sleep some more. All he did was sit up, drink, and look around but he was already worn out.
When he woke up again, he didn't spend as long taking stock of his surroundings and let himself wake up quickly. He could feel the roaring fire behind him and his stomach growled at the smell of something delicious being roasted over the fire. He groaned and sat up painfully. The archer noticed and turned his attention away from the fire, speaking to him in an unfamiliar language.
"Sorry, I don't understand." He replied. He was pretty sure the archer knew he couldn't understand, though.
He pointed at the pheasant roasting on the fire. "Can I have some?"
The man nodded and replied, saying something, and when he dished himself out some food he also made a plate for him as well.
"Thanks!" he said, grinning. "Itadakimasu."
They ate in silence and the man cleaned their dishes with water from the plastic jugs before turning to him and pointing to himself. "Yao Fei."
"Shisui." He said, pointing to himself.
The archer, Yao Fei, pointed at various things around the cave and named them, trying to teach him the language. He learned the words for bow, arrow, quiver, trap, fire, plate, and cave. Yao Fei left with the traps and returned later with two more pheasants, some herbs, and more water. He set one of the traps in front of him and repeated that same word he'd said so often all the times he had briefly regained consciousness while he was sick.
"Shengcún."
"What's that mean? Live? Survive?" he asked. It's all he could think of.
Yao Fei killed his own pheasant and started prepping it to eat, so he did the same. He broke its neck easily, removed it from the trap, and got to work prepping it to roast over the fire. They ate in silence. They spent several days like that before Yao Fei deemed him well enough to accompany him on trips outside the cave to fetch water and set the animal traps.
Author's Note – I haven't finished watching the series. I'm rewatching it from the beginning atm, which inspired this crossover fanfic, but I don't think I made it too far into even season 2 originally. Please leave a review! But please no spoilers. This was supposed to be a Harry Potter crossover but I abandoned that one and now I'm going to make this Arrow crossover instead.